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Show Motherlunge a novel 185 coin, new currency from a land of fertility. At least you have each other, I thought self-pityingly, but didn't say...there was no way to say that aloud without sounding like I was trying to console her; she didn't know that Eli had just broken up with me. Instead I gave her the patented family offering: a look of understanding. "I know what you mean," I said. "We're all alone." The music from the kid next to me on the subway came back to me as if still carried on the warm, bad-fruit-smelling air that pushes up from the train tunnels. The sound of their breath fades with the light. And it was an austere and emphatic moment-only a little frightening-that I shared with my sister, who kissed again the vacant patch on the back of X.'s head. The grey-blue light from the TV in the next room shifted across his arms and shoulders, across his hands. Walter was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking. A book was open flat in front of him. He was having trouble concentrating. Ha ha ha! roared the laugh track. Walter turned his head to listen; he didn't hear his daughters laugh along in the living room. Maybe the laugh track made it seem unnecessary to them. Entering behind him, Dorothy crossed into the kitchen with a trembling glass in her hand. She got some ice cubes from the freezer, then filled the glass at the tap. She moved past Walter again on her way back down the hall to the bedroom. Across his left hand on the open book, the TV light moved like something striking poses. |
